Activision Blizzard Sued For Virtual World Infringement

Rather than serve the customer, it seems that most businesses have nothing else better to do than sue each other over patent infringement. History books will one day look back on the turn of the century as the "Era of Patent Infringement" or something even more clever. They'll report that corporations were fighting over the rights of touch controls, operating systems, smileys and now even virtual worlds.

Games Industry International reports that Worlds Inc. filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard over World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. According to the company, both franchises violate its patent by using a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space." Worlds Inc. is naturally seeking compensation because both games allegedly use technologies developed by the company.

"Technologies created by Worlds have helped the businesses of virtual worlds gaming and the sale of virtual goods to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry," said Worlds Inc. CEO Thom Kidrin. "While we are pleased to see that the gaming industry and its rapidly growing customer base have enthusiastically embraced our patented technologies, we deserve fair compensation for their use."

This is the second time Worlds Inc. has sued a publisher over an MMOG. The company went after South Korea-based NCSoft back in 2008, claiming that City of Heroes and its other MMOGs violated patent 7,181,690, aka "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space." The case was filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division because NCSoft Corp. had a headquarters in Austin, Texas.

The lawsuit stated that NCSoft illegally incorporated its patented "product" into its MMOGs. As the patent label implies, the "product" deals with creating realistic scalable presentations of 3D virtual worlds, and allowing players to interact in those virtual worlds. But the court eventually ordered a dismissal with prejudice due to a binding settlement between the two companies signed on April 23, 2010. The details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Based on the results of the first lawsuit, Activision Blizzard may end up settling out of court. After that, who will be next on the list? Sony Online Entertainment could be a likely candidate if it's not already.

Some of these patent lawsuits I see are completely ridiculous, "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space." ... that could be targetting practically every game ever made, ever. - even PacMan? you interact by moving a character around a virtual space in the form of a 2d maze...